


Berlinstagram

by jouissant



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Dirty Talk, Drinking, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 18:39:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how it always is with Zach, these master plans that Chris has to be wheedled into kicking and screaming. The thing about it is, though...he’s never once regretted letting himself be wheedled. Not even the time he woke up with the worst hangover he’s ever had and not one but two skinned knees, the cause of which he still has absolutely no memory of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Berlinstagram

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Berlinstagram 中文翻译版](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2145105) by [skyoz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyoz/pseuds/skyoz)
  * Translation into 中文 available: [Berlinstagram 中文翻译版](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2145105) by [skyoz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyoz/pseuds/skyoz)



> Things I don't remember about the press tour and was too deep in denial about writing this to look up: 
> 
> -the dates of the press tour  
> -the actual order of countries visited on the press tour  
> -which cast members were in which places  
> -who had what facial hair when

Chris should have known. He should have known the second they landed, because despite the general press tour malaise that’s already setting in, Zach perks up as soon as the wheels hit the tarmac. It’s a bumpy landing, and Chris can’t stop himself from gripping the armrests white knuckle style. Across the aisle, Zach is already blithely rummaging in his bag for his phone. By the time they get to the hotel, he’s practically crackling with manic energy, bouncing on the balls of his feet as their people handle check in. 

“So, we’re going out later, right?” 

“I don’t know, man, that was a long flight. I’m kinda whipped. Maybe--”

“No, tomorrow we have press all day and then the premiere. Tomorrow, you’ll really be whipped. It’s got to be tonight.” 

Chris huffs a sigh. 

“Come on,” Zach says, voice stretching just shy of a whine. “You can sleep when you’re dead.” 

Chris thinks death has a lot to recommend it right about now. This is how it always is with Zach, these master plans that Chris has to be wheedled into kicking and screaming. The thing about it is, though...he’s never once regretted letting himself be wheedled. Not even the time he woke up with the worst hangover he’s ever had and not one but two skinned knees, the cause of which he still has absolutely no memory of. 

“Ugh, fine,” he says. “But you owe me. I get a freebie on the vocab thing tomorrow.” 

Zach raises an eyebrow. “Losing your confidence, Christopher?” 

Something in his tone threatens to make Chris blush. He scuffs a toe across the marble lobby floor. “No way.” 

“Hmm. Fine. We can discuss the particulars of _that_ later.” He looks at his watch. “So you want to meet back here at 8 and grab some food first?” 

First. Jesus Christ. 

“Sure, sounds like a plan.” 

“Excellent. It’s a date. Although, on second thought--let me come by your room. I feel like I might need to vet your outfit. And take a nap, you look like shit.” 

Chris rolls his eyes. “Bossy.” 

But Zach’s already turning away, traipsing across the lobby to the elevators, fighting with his suitcase. 

“You know, there are bellhops for that,” Chris calls after him. 

“Hashtag douchequotes,” Zach replies without turning around. “Adding it to the list.” 

Chris actually does blush this time, and hurries after Zach so he doesn’t miss the elevator. As the car starts up, he looks over at Zach, who’s watching the glowing buttons and grinning at nothing in particular. The funny feeling in Chris’s stomach has absolutely nothing to do with that, though. It’s just the upward momentum of the elevator, ferrying them into the sky.

***

“I guess that’ll work.”

“You _guess? _Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Chris squints at his reflection, which he’d been feeling fine about until about fifteen minutes ago, when he’d opened the door to Zach and his fucking judgy side-eye. This is his third pair of jeans, not that he can really tell the difference, and Zach had better be satisfied because Chris is done.__

__Zach gives him a long once-over, long enough that it makes Chris feel squirmy, shifting from foot to foot. “No, you know what? It’s good. You look good.”_ _

__“Geez, you go to one fashion week and suddenly you’re Karl Lagerfeld.”_ _

__“Fat Karl or skinny Karl, though? Because--”_ _

__Chris throws the keycard at him. “If I’ve passed muster, skinny Karl, let’s get out of here before I reneg on you and go to sleep.”_ _

__“And miss Berlin? You’d never.”_ _

__Out on the street, Zach scrolls through email on his phone with the same manic glee that had consumed him in the lobby earlier. “I have a friend who was just here last month, and he sent me this whole list,” he says, biting his lower lip in concentration. “Ah, here we go. How do you feel about French? But not like French-French, like Algerian French.”_ _

__“Well, as long as it’s not French-French. I’m _kidding_ , don’t give me that look.” He sidesteps closer to body-check Zach with his shoulder. “Sounds great.”_ _

__It is great. The restaurant is small and dimly-lit, like a cozy cavern, and as they step inside Chris feels some of the tension leach out of him, that itchy panopticon feeling he gets out in public falling away. There’s one table left, a two top in the back of the room, and when the server settles them there and presents menus and a wine list Chris has to fight the urge to drop his chin into his hands and sigh happily._ _

__Zach looks at him over the top of his menu, and Chris can’t really see his mouth, but he doesn’t need to to tell he’s smiling._ _

__“What?”_ _

__Zach shakes his head. “Nothing. Hey, shit, look at the menu. You speak any German?”_ _

__“I do, actually. I took a couple semesters in college.”_ _

__Zach hands it over. “The erudite Mr. Pine,” he says. “I’m impressed. And I guess I’m also at your mercy.”_ _

__They order--well, Chris orders--a bottle of red and a couple of starters, then a mixed grill, along with a provençal fish dish for Zach, just in case he’s not feeling the fleisch tonight. The wine is really good, and Chris lets his first sip mellow on his tongue for a moment before swallowing it down, imagining warmth painting a bright line down his throat to his belly and all the way to his toes. They talk about everything and nothing: what’s going on in New York and LA, how it’s bullshit that they’re not going to see John and Anton until the stateside premieres, if Zach’s going change anything about his Tom for Broadway._ _

__“Which, fucking Broadway, man,” Chris says, dragging a piece of flatbread through the plate of hummus. “Congrats, if I haven’t said it already.”_ _

__“Pretty sure you have. Although, hey, I’m always up for a little extra adulation,” Zach says. “But...thanks.”_ _

__Chris snorts. “Of course you are. And you’re welcome.” He tips his glass in Zach’s direction._ _

__“And how’s your princess act coming along, Princess?” Zach takes a sip of wine and grins devilishly around the lip of the glass._ _

__“Haven’t given it much thought yet, Zachary.” London, the end of the summer--it seems years off tonight, but Chris remembers thinking the exact same thing about the press tour just a few months ago, so his perception of time is clearly warped._ _

__When their food comes, Zach seizes upon the fish with gusto, though he pokes a curious fork into some of Chris’s lamb._ _

__“That’s actually really good,” he says, after methodically chewing and swallowing. “It’s cooked perfectly.”_ _

__“I know, right? Nothing like a little fleisch.”_ _

__Zach shakes his head. “Gross. So, hey, how’s everything else going with you? How’s…”  
He screws up his face and gestures wildly, and Chris knows it’s driving him nuts that he can’t remember her name. _ _

__“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Ancient history.”_ _

__“Come on, you’re not even going to put me out of my misery? I’m dying here.”_ _

__Chris shakes his head. “Blame it on the wine. And anyway, I think saying her name might bring all kinds of bad mojo raining down. It wasn’t...we didn’t really part on the best of terms.”_ _

__Zach takes a contemplative sip of the aforementioned wine. “Interesting. So you’re--”_ _

__“Free as a bird,” Chris says, raising his glass with a flourish and rolling his eyes. Somehow, it feels important that Zach understand just how deeply ambivalent Chris feels about this turn of events._ _

__“Christopher, Christopher,” Zach says, tapping his lips with a fingertip. “Right in time for the press tour. I’m not sure if I should be proud or disappointed.”_ _

__Chris’s face feels hot. It’s not like he has some crazy track record--sure, there was that girl in London last time, the one he brought back to the hotel and managed to walk out the next morning just as Zach was coming in from a run, all sweaty and nudge-nudge-winking totally un-subtly. And there was Paris, but they were all so drunk and he kind of lost track of Françoise after the third club, and she’d seemed a little more into Zoe anyway, so it was probably for the best._ _

__But Zach’s giving him this weird look, like he actually _is_ a little disappointed in Chris, and the thing is...now Chris remembers. He remembers Zach in Paris, and that’s something Chris hasn’t let himself think about in literally years. _ _

__They were so, so drunk, and Chris remembers looking around and realizing they’d lost Zoe and Françoise and Anton, and he remembers leaning in close to Zach and whisper-yelling about it. He remembers Zach’s breath hot on his ear and a hand on his lower back, just the place hands go when you’re letting someone lean into you because you’re both pretty drunk and it’s pretty loud._ _

__“I think they went back to the hotel,” Zach said. “When you were in the bathroom. So it’s just you and me now.”_ _

__There was something in his voice, some dark little fillip, that made Chris pull back. Zach must’ve taken it for pulling away, because he dropped his arm immediately. So Chris was just standing there next to Zach, thinking of nothing so much as how he was kind of disappointed that Zach wasn’t touching him anymore._ _

__“Just you and me,” Chris repeated. He’d never be able to say for sure until later, and maybe it was the booze or the music or fucking Paris, but he’d gotten the feeling just then that he was on the cusp of one of those moments you looked back on years in the future and said, drunk on some maudlin holiday: that was when everything changed._ _

__But then it hadn’t. Someone yelled off to their left, and they both looked up, looked after the noise, and when they turned back to each other the moment--the feeling-- was gone._ _

__“I’m getting kind of tired,” Chris said. “Think I’m gonna head back too.”_ _

__Zach nodded a little too fast, a little too easy. “Yeah, sure, man. Let’s get a cab.” And if Chris hadn’t known better, if he hadn’t been wrong about the moment after all, he might’ve thought Zach looked relieved. In the taxi, Chris had leaned his head against the window and pretended to be asleep._ _

__And now they’re in Berlin, four years on, and Chris is single._ _

__“What about you?” He swirls the wine around in his glass, watching the little tornado it makes at the bottom._ _

__Zach rolls his eyes theatrically and downs the rest of his glass in one long swallow, and Chris is definitely only staring at the long line of his throat because there’d been most of a pretty generous pour in there and it’s frankly pretty impressive, like sword-swallowing or something. Zach takes a deep breath, and his eyes are wet in the candlelight._ _

__“Reflex tears,” Chris says._ _

__Zach wipes at his face with the heel of his hand. “What? Oh, yeah.”_ _

__Chris decides that’s probably Zach for “it’s complicated.” He elects to change the subject, pretending to crane his neck to look at the chalkboard over the bar advertising the specials._ _

___Tarte aux pommes_ , _profiteroles_. “You getting dessert?” _ _

__Zach wrinkles his nose. “My brain says yes, but my stomach says no.”_ _

__“My suit tomorrow says no,” Chris says with no small measure of regret. All that meat was pushing it. He’ll eat lots of salads back in the states, he swears._ _

__“C’mon, Pine, live a little. You know I like you with a little meat on your bones,” Zach says, and no, actually, Chris doesn’t know._ _

__“ _Really_. Care to elaborate?” _ _

__“Oh, you know, like Kirk mode. Bubble butt in full effect. More cushion for the pushin’.”_ _

__Chris throws a stray piece of crust at him. “Oh my god,” he says. “We’re getting the check.”_ _

____

***

Zach consults his precious iPhone list again, and declares his chosen venue out of walking distance. He seems excited about figuring out the u-bahn, but Chris drags his feet until they decide to get a cab, Zach all mock-huffy until they slide in and he gives the driver the address.

“I’ve heard really good things about this place--artisan cocktails, great music.” 

Chris lets Zach order for him when they get there, which turns out to have been another great idea. The drinks he brings back to their corner booth are summery and fresh and like nothing Chris has had before, all basil and cucumber and gin and citrus, kind of sweetish--

“Vanilla simple syrup,” Zach says. 

“Weird,” Chris says, but he takes another sip of his and gets a second when it’s gone. 

Zach snaps a picture and spends way too long fiddling with the filters. "I feel like I always use Amaro,” he says. “So predictable.” 

Chris rolls his eyes. “Totally. But I’m sure your adoring public appreciates dissecting exactly how you take your fancy drinks.” 

“Whatever. Mobile photography is the new photojournalism,” Zach says, all sound-bitey and matter-of-fact. 

Chris snorts into his drink. “Oh my god. Talk about your fucking douchequotes! _Mobile photography?_ More like voyeurism writ portable. Susan Sontag is rolling over in her grave.” 

Zach gives him a long look, then sets his phone down on the table and opens up the notes feature, his screen cheery legal-pad yellow in the dim room. He starts tapping away at the keypad. 

“Are you writing that down?” 

“Come on, ‘voyeurism writ portable?’ That’s gold, man. I’m going to rip you off in an interview sometime for sure. Plus, I’m definitely captioning my drink picture with it as soon as I finish this note.” 

Chris makes a gagging sound back in his throat. “I have to piss.” He eases up from the table, stretching. His shirt rides up in front and Zach doesn’t even try to pretend he’s not looking, the fucker. “Don’t tag me in that thing,” Chris says as he turns away from the booth.

“How can I tag you when you don’t have an account, you Luddite?”

***

“Should we have invited Zoe?” Chris asks, fiddling with a coaster.

“Oh, um...I don’t know, should we? I mean, I could call, but I think it might be kind of late. And she said she was tired, so.” Zach picks up his phone, turns it over in his hand. Chris thinks that he’d said he was tired, which hadn’t seemed to stop Zach, but he decides against voicing the contradiction. It’s not like this is the first or even the twentieth time they’ve hung out just the two of them, but something feels different now in a way Chris can’t really put his finger on, like the whole night’s been imbued with the same nerve-jangling anticipation he felt for that split second back in Paris. 

_Just you and me._

Everything feels too quiet all of a sudden, and Chris thinks Zach must feel it too, because he looks up from his drink with a kind of slow trepidation. The easy camaraderie of earlier in the evening seems to have shifted, like they’ve stretched plausible deniability to its limits and are bumping up against the invisible boundary of things just friends do. Go out to dinner, go out for drinks, stare at each other across a table and think about how much you’ve missed this, stare at Zach’s hands wrapped around a highball glass. 

“You want to get out of here?” Zach says. 

Chris nods. He wants to go, to move. He feels like if he does maybe he can get out from under this weird, tense pall he’s got going right now.They pay the tab and go out into the street. The sun sets late in the summer, but it’s full dark now and the streetlights have come on. Across the way a narrow balcony is twined with Christmas lights, such a simple thing that’s never quite stopped feeling magical to him. 

It’s kind of fucking romantic. 

Zach nudges him, uses the resistance to push back on his heels and look up at the sky like he’s going to go over backwards onto the sidewalk. His hands are shoved in his jacket pockets.

They should call it a night, Chris thinks. Call it a night and get a cab back to the hotel, go to sleep buzzed and punchy and wake up in the morning for press, back and forth with Zach and an interviewer lobbing boring questions just like always. But he gets the feeling that if he does...if he does, tomorrow and four years from now when they do this song and dance again he’ll look at Zach in that windowless room--always windowless, better for the lighting, except that sweet room in Australia that backed up to the harbor--he’ll look at Zach and wonder about what they’d have done if they hadn’t gone back to the hotel. So. 

“So what now?” Chris says.

Zach narrows his eyes at Chris, like he’s trying to decide something. He’s biting his lip, but the corners are quirking up in this weird smirky not-smile, and it’s driving Chris a little crazy even as it’s making his stomach do this clenching thing usually reserved for airplane turbulence and bumpy roads at high speed. In a good way. 

“What?”

Zach shakes his head. “I was just wondering--”

_“What?”_

“Do you...do you trust me?” 

Well, that was probably the last thing Chris expected to hear. He actually has to think about it for a second. 

“Um...yes? I guess? Although I gotta say, the follow up to that is usually, like, a death-defying leap off a building to avoid our enemies or something, so--”

“Then quit rambling and follow me,” Zach says, trusty iPhone back out. “We should be able to walk to this one.”

He thumbs the map app open and squints at the screen. “Yeah, should be…” He trails off and starts walking, and Chris stands there staring dumbly at his retreating back before getting ahold of himself and jogging to catch up. Zach’s apparently in New York mode: dauntless forward motion, a dogged determination to get them where they’re going or die trying. Once, they got lost in Williamsburg, straying a block off course and apparently ruining Zach’s meticulously constructed mental map of the neighborhood. Zach had been genuinely put out, and Chris thought he might actually die trying, but only because he’d missed lunch and they were supposed to be going for burgers. 

Tonight, Zach’s directions seem to be good, because he pulls them up short in front of a nondescript, unmarked door on a quiet side street. If Chris concentrates, he can hear the thump thump thump of bass like the street itself has a heart.

“I think we’re here,” Zach says, and when he turns to look at Chris he’s clearly brimming with excitement. “Look, are you sure you’re--”

“What, did you bring me to some kind of sex club or something? Why are you being so cagey?” 

To which Zach is disturbingly quiet, biting at his lower lip and looking down a flight of steps to the door. 

“Oh my god, are you _serious_?” 

Zach cracks up, clapping a hand over his own mouth like that’s going to make it less obvious that he’s yukking it up at Chris’s expense. Chris whacks him in the shoulder. “Quit laughing!” 

Zach makes a somewhat futile attempt to stop. “It’s not a sex club, per se.” 

“Per _se?_ ” 

“It’s a sex _y_ club?” Zach cocks his head to one side owlishly, like he’s trying the descriptor on for size and finding it fits. “It’s a very sexy underground club with very dark corners where dark deeds sometimes take place. According to my sources.” 

“And you...wanted to bring me here?” 

Chris is kind of a dick for asking that, honestly, but he guesses Zach can play it one of three ways. He can play it off, and they can go play tourist in his sexy club for a round or two. He can play it off, and they can bag it and go back to the hotel. Or he can not play it off, and he and Chris can step over the threshold, into the street’s dark pulse and over a line they’ve been toeing for awhile now. 

Zach takes his hands out of his pockets. He’s wearing this grey leather jacket that Chris has kind of wanted to maul ever since he saw it, and it’s that and his dark buttondown and the long line of his body and those pale hands, just hanging there, palms open to Chris as if in supplication. It’s all these things, and the fact he’s not talking, and if Zach’s not talking he can’t really play this off, can he? 

He takes a step closer to Chris. Chris watches his adam’s apple bob as he swallows, like maybe his mouth is as dry as Chris’s is right now. He watches the stubble on Zach’s left temple, which is not growing in nearly fast enough, and who the fuck in their right mind gets that haircut when lots and lots of people are definitely going to be taking their picture? Zach must be nuts, must be absolutely touched in the head--

“Yes,” Zach says. 

Chris has forgotten the question. “Yes?” 

“Yes, I wanted to bring you here. Christopher.” 

“Oh,” Chris says, his brain having apparently jetted off for less paradigm-challenging climes. “Why?” 

Zach takes another step, and he’s well up in Chris’s personal space now. Some distant part of him is blaring red alerts and danger-Will-Robinsons, but a larger, dumber, drunker part is completely on board. 

Zach grabs a fistful of Chris’s shirt and yanks. “You are such an asshole,” he says into Chris’s mouth. 

_Oh fuck_ , Chris thinks. _Oh fuck_. Because yeah, the kiss is everything he thought it would be. It’s rough and sharp; neither of them is clean-shaven, least of all Chris. Zach makes no bones about just going there with the teeth, nipping at Chris’s lower lip and taking hold of the back of Chris’s skull so he can’t really go anywhere. 

They break apart and Zach leans in close to rest his forehead against Chris’s and laugh into the space between them. He’s still clutching a bunch of fabric at Chris’s chest, tugging the collar down. “This shirt cost $120,” Chris whines, mostly facetiously. “You’re stretching it out.” 

Zach snorts. “Douche. Quotes,” he says, and kisses Chris again. It’s softer this time, more serious somehow, and Chris reaches out and finds Zach’s hand, wraps their fingers together and squeezes. 

“We still going in?” Chris says softly. 

Zach raises an eyebrow, flashing a pointy white smile. “You still want to?” 

Chris nods. “Take me to your vampire lair,” he says in his worst Bela Lugosi.

Zach rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t let go of Chris’s hand. 

When they step inside and the door closes behind them, Chris has to fight off a wave of claustrophobia. Even in the pitch dark, which it mostly is, you can tell the place is packed, and Chris has to take a second and breathe through the part of him that’s shrieking FIRE HAZARD at the top of its lungs. The coat check is all done up in red, and a hot, scantily clad guy who looks about 20 trades them the cover charge for blotchy black wrist stamps that are going to be a fucking bitch to get off tomorrow. The music is a dirty grind, bass that makes Chris’s teeth shake, and yeah, Zach’s “sources” are right, this place is sexy as hell. He can barely tell who or what he’s looking at, just bodies, flashes of skin that emerge and disappear again like underwater camera footage of the sea floor. Mermaids or giant squid. Zach squeezes his hand. 

“You want a drink?” Zach yells in his ear. 

Chris nods; he’s not too proud for a little more Dutch courage, now that they’re doing whatever it is they’re doing. 

“Beer,” he says. Zach nods (“Stay here,”) and disappears into the press of people at the bar. 

Chris stays stock-still, trying to hold his feet. He feels like he’s standing in the middle of a river, and then Zach is back, taking Chris’s hand again and closing it around the neck of a bottle of beer. Chris nods his thanks, and Zach lifts his own bottle to clink Chris’s. He takes a sip and swallows, leans back in for Chris’s mouth. Chris obliges. Zach’s tongue is cold and bitter from the beer. He brings a hand up to cup Zach’s cheek, runs a thumb over the prickle of stubble along his cheekbone. 

They drain the beers like they mean business, and Zach jerks his thumb at the dancefloor, which is really more a forest of writhing bodies. What the fuck, they’re in a sexy club. Chris is going to dance and it’s probably going to be sexy. Occupational hazard. Actually, no, who’s he kidding? Chris dancing is a cruel joke, all elbows and Elaine from Seinfeld-meets-small liberal arts college mixer. So it’s better that it’s like this, the dancefloor so packed that there’s no choice but to just stand next to Zach and move. 

The dark feels palpable, shadows shot through with bolts of red and pink light from a set of strobes by the dj booth. Chris doesn’t worry for a second about someone seeing them; it’s unusual for him not to care, but he’s drunkish and it’s not like that here, no preening or see-and-be-seen. No seeing period, not really. They don’t bother actually dancing; they grind together in a way that would be impossibly lewd in a better-lit room. Chris hesitates for a second before letting his hands drift down to Zach’s lower back, and Zach does him one better and grabs Chris’s ass with both hands, mouthing his neck as he does so. 

“Fuck,” Chris mutters. He’s totally hard in his jeans already. Zach nibbles up the line of his jaw to his mouth, and then they’re pressed together flush and tangled from head to toe. Chris cards his fingers though the floppy part of Zach’s hair, up on the top of his head, and can’t stop himself from giggling. 

“Are you laughing? Why are you laughing?” 

Chris can’t believe Zach can hear him over the music; maybe he’s shaking, but then so is the rest of the room. 

“Your fucking hair,” he yells back. 

“Fuck you,” Zach says, grinning. “You’d better watch yourself, Pine.” 

“Oh yeah? Or what?” 

Zach gives him a dangerous, close-lipped smile that says it clear as day: _That’s for me to know and you to find out._

“Kiss me again,” he says in Chris’s ear, and something about the hot huff of breath so close sends a shudder running down his spine. So Chris complies, closing his eyes and letting his mind wander, until he’s jerked abruptly out of his reverie by Zach reaching between their bodies to palm Chris through his jeans. He moans into Zach’s mouth, the contact tantalizing but nowhere close to enough. But right on the heels of this burst of pleasure comes a rush of hot blood to Chris’s face, his lizard brain reiterating that private parts need to stay private. Some guy’s back brushes against him, and it’s too much; he tries to bat Zach’s hand away. 

“Not here,” he says. 

“Chris, literally no one is paying attention. Remember what I said about dark corners?” 

Zach grinds them together again, and Chris sucks in a breath. “Can we find an actual corner, then?” 

Zach chuckles; Chris can feel it against his own chest. “Fine.” He hooks a finger through one of Chris’s belt loops and pulls, leading him through the crowd as he stalks toward the edge of the floor. Dancers part for them, some casting glazed, heavy-lidded looks their way and others not looking at all, eyes closed, mouths frozen in rictuses of hedonistic joy. 

Zach’s got his hand out in front of him, feeling more than looking for the wall. When he finds it he pulls Chris to him hard enough to scare out a breath, then turns them like they’re ballroom dancing to back Chris up against the wall. Chris brings his hands up, out of instinct more than anything, and Zach seizes his wrists in one hand, holds them down at crotch level and leans in. 

“Told you to watch it.” 

His voice sounds low and dangerous, just this side of mean. He fucking nips Chris on the neck, licking over the sting a second later. _Vampire lair_ , Chris thinks. Jesus Christ, that better not leave a mark tomorrow. He squirms, which is apparently the exact wrong thing to do, because Zach grips his wrists harder and sucks on Chris’s neck, free hand fumbling with Chris’s fly. Chris freezes, unable to respond as Zach reaches into his boxers and squeezes Chris’s dick, which is traitorously pleased with its lot.

“Jesus,” Chris hisses. “Zach--”

Zach pushes him back against the wall more forcefully, moving in directly front of him and dropping the hand in Chris’s pants so he can pin him, one arm across Chris’s chest. He slides a leg between Chris’s, spreading him wider and rubbing Chris’s hard-on with his thigh. 

“Tell me to stop,” he whispers, “and I’ll stop.” All the venom from a second ago is gone, and it’s just Zach again. And so Chris knows for sure now--this is just a thing, and it can stop if he wants. Which somehow magically makes stopping the very last thing on his agenda. 

Zach reaches back down to jerk Chris’s dick experimentally. “Hmm?” he hums at the corner of Chris’s mouth, biting at his lips. 

“Fuck,” Chris says, sighing. “Fuck, no, don’t stop.” 

Zach laughs at that. “Didn’t think so,” he says, his grip tightening on Chris’s wrists. 

Chris could get free in a second, but there’s something really hot about being pinned like this, Zach just taking what he wants. So he lets himself be held in place, and before long Zach’s pinning Chris with his entire body instead, one hand on Chris’s hip and the other spit-slick and working his dick. Zach’s face is buried in Chris’s neck, and he thinks he hears Zach talking, muttering under his breath. They could be the sweetest or the filthiest words Chris has ever heard, but he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care because they’re up against a wall in the middle of a fucking club in fucking Berlin, and it’s _Zach_. 

He lets out a strangled sound, and Zach obviously likes what he hears, because he looks up and crooks a finger under Chris’s chin to bring them face to face. Chris can barely make him out in the flashbulb relief of the strobes, nose and lips and dark, dark eyes. He stopped feeling exposed to the room awhile ago, but now he feels laid bare twice over under the unwavering gaze of those eyes. 

“Hey," Zach says, and for just a second they could be doing anything, bantering over Scrabble or Zach’s dumb almond milk lattes or whether Chris was allowed to use _opprobrium_ instead of _opprobrious_ in an interview or if that was cheating. Chris smiles then, wide and true, and he somehow feels like most of the real smiles lately have been for Zach anyway. 

“You look hot like this,” Zach says, breathing into Chris's ear to make the tingly thing happen again. “Bet you’d look hot with your dick in my mouth, too. Think these nice people would mind if I got down on my knees and sucked you right here in front of them? Would you blush all pretty for them, Christopher? Would you be shy? I think you’d pretend to be. But you know what?” 

Chris whines again, and fuck, this is so weird, but some part of him is obviously a huge fucking fan because he’s like a hairsbreadth away from blowing all over Zach’s hand. 

“Zach--”

“You know what?” 

“Ah, fuck. What?” 

“I think you’d like it.” 

And that's it, he's done. His mouth drops open and there's a hot, heavy clench of muscles in his stomach, and Chris is coming hopelessly, chanting a litany of oh-oh-oh and scrabbling for the back of Zach's head to pull him in so he can ride it out gasping into a kiss. He lets himself slump against Zach instead of the wall, rude, but Zach takes it like the brave little soldier he is. 

"You weigh a ton."

Chris tucks himself back into his jeans, looking around like it's not way too fucking late to worry about that. "You were the one going on about how much you like my Kirk butt."

"Mmm. True." Zach reaches back to squeeze appreciatively. "I hope to become better acquainted with it in future."

“Jesus,” Chris says. “What the hell was that? And hey, wait, what about--" Chris reaches down and gropes experimentally. Sure enough, Zach's still hard.

Zach looks down and shrugs, twisting away from Chris's touch. “The things I want to do to you would probably get us thrown out of here,” he says. “I’d rather wait.” 

There’s a moment where the swagger in his tone doesn’t quite match the expression on Zach’s face, but then things seem to right themselves and he’s glowering at Chris per usual. And Chris isn’t sure how he feels about finishing Zach off right here anyway, so he’s content to let it go for now.  
“Come on,” Zach says, making for the exit, having evidently had enough of the sexy vampire club for the time being. It’s lighter out on the street than it was inside, and under the streetlights Chris can see a telltale splotch of evidence on Zach’s black jeans. 

“Um,” he says, pointing. 

Zach produces a wadded napkin from somewhere or other, dabbing at the stain. “It would appear,” he says, “that I’ve been Pined.” 

They get a cab back to the hotel, both of them scooting to opposite windows to better huddle and, in Zach’s case, stew. He’s unresponsive, even when Chris cautiously spider-walks a hand over to where Zach’s is splayed palm down on the seat and runs a thumb cautiously over his pinkie. He’s quiet in the cab, quiet when they spill out back at the hotel, quiet in the elevator. 

Chris watches this period of performative silence with a furrowed brow and a growing sense of unease, because what he’s witnessing here is Zach shutting down like a fucking laptop, and Chris isn’t going to stand for it. When they shuffle off the elevator and Zach makes some noise about going to bed, Chris just shakes his head and follows Zach down the hall to his room. 

“Chris, look, I just want to--”

“Open the door,” he says, and when Zach does Chris bundles them inside. 

“What are you--oof, what are you doing?” 

“Aggressive snuggling. Take off your shoes.” He pries one of his off with the opposite toe, then bends down to untie the other, fingertip hooked in one of Zach’s jeans pockets lest he try to escape.

“What the fuck, man,” Zach says, but he kicks his boots off and lets Chris tip them both over onto the bed to lie parallel. He drapes a leg over Zach’s body. It’s kind of strange, Chris thinks, to be so close without the benefit of the dark. He can see a pinkish spray of healing razorburn on the left side of Zach’s jaw; that one sideburn is a fraction longer than the other; that Zach seems to have a double row of eyelashes, which is just unfair.

“Hi,” Chris says. “You sobering up or something?” 

“Or something.” Zach rolls over so his face is half-pressed into the mattress. “Shit. I cannot believe I did that.” 

“Um, last I checked we were both there,” Chris says. “And it was pretty consensual.”  
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Zach continues, as if Chris hasn’t said anything. “Anyone could’ve been there, anyone could’ve seen--”

“But they didn’t. And if they did…” he shrugs, which isn’t quite as effective horizontal, but he guesses it gets the point across. 

Zach snorts. “You’re telling me you wouldn’t care?” 

Chris looks pointedly at Zach’s mouth. “Can’t two friends have an ill-advised sexual encounter every so often?” 

“Ill-advised, huh?” 

“Well,” Chris says, “Maybe that was a poor choice of words.” He leans in and kisses Zach softly on the mouth. “If I let you grope my butt some more, will it make you feel better?” 

Zach rolls his eyes. “How can I refuse an offer like that?” But he kisses Chris back, so Chris counts it as a win. Zach kind of growls into the kiss, pulling on Chris’s shoulder until Chris gets the hint and rolls on top of him. Zach wastes no time going straight for the aforementioned ass and squeezing, and Chris is definitely starting to come back out of refractory mode, despite the alcohol and previous orgasm. He says a little prayer of thanks. 

“You sure about this?” Zach says. “I’m not sure I can be held responsible for my actions once I get started with this thing.” 

Chris swallows. “Sure I’m sure,” he says, and the awkward tire-squeal squeak in his voice could not be better timed, it really couldn’t. But it cracks Zach up, and his face is all pink and flushed and open now, and god knows Chris will take a thousand dumb jokes at his expense for that, if you want to get right down to it. 

“Okay, if you say so,” Zach says through a gale of laughter. “Take your pants off.” 

Chris does him one better and takes everything off, watching Zach watch him with no small measure of satisfaction. “You too,” Chris says, and Zach nods dreamily like he’d forgotten he was even wearing clothes. 

“Where do you want me?” 

“Mmm. Get on your stomach,” Zach says. 

Chris does, feeling the mattress dip as Zach settles next to him. He’s unable to repress a shudder as Zach runs a hand into the hollow of his lower back and back up out of it, over the curve of Chris’s ass.  
“You still have a bubble butt,” he says. Chris can hear the smirk in his voice, so he sticks his ass a little higher and wiggles it, earning a soft smack from Zach. Right on its heels is a sharp sting of teeth, which Zach soothes with his tongue, and he sure is into biting. Maybe there was something to that old blind item after all, Chris thinks wildly. Zach spreads Chris with both hands and fucking licks him. 

“Oh my god,” Chris says into the pillow, squirming under Zach’s tongue uncontrollably. He’s always felt a little conflicted over the mouth-ass continuum, mainly falling on the “don’t think too hard about it” side of things. But there’s really no way not to think about it right now, because Zach is eating his ass with aplomb, all kinds of wet slurpy noises coming from his end of the bed. Chris thinks this really shouldn’t feel as good as it does, all things considered. 

_“Zach.”_

“Relax,” Zach says thickly. “You’re thinking too much; I can practically feel you overthinking.” 

“Isn’t it--”

“Dude, if I wanted to I could probably blow in my pants right now. It’s fucking hot, trust me. It’s--” Zach makes a wordless growly noise and sinks his fingers into Chris’s ass cheek, just shy of too hard. “The things I would do to this ass,” he finishes. 

Oh. Well, okay then, Chris thinks. He resolves to try and suspend conscious thought for the next little while, just letting himself drift and letting Zach do unspeakable things to his ass, spreading him apart and nosing in there with what feels like his whole face. Chris thinks of what it must look like, imagines Zach looking up at him with half his face smeared with spit, messy and gleaming in the lamplight, grinning like a loon. Before he quite realizes he’s doing it, he’s humping the bed. He wonders if he can get a hand down there without getting too verbally excoriated, or if he even cares. As well as Chris knows Zach, he doesn’t know him like this at all. There’s nothing that should be familiar about getting a hand job on a dance floor, or Zach’s freakout on the way home, or Zach’s tongue inside him-- any of it. The thing is, though, the weird thing-- everything about tonight has felt so damn familiar to Chris. 

Zach sits up then, laying a hot hand on the small of Chris’s back, trailing fingers over Chris’s hole. He’s breathing heavily, and Chris feels a spark of irritation that his face is half-buried in a feather pillow, because he wants to look at Zach. 

“Can I--Can I fuck you?” 

That makes Chris sit up in earnest. Zach’s staring at him, wide-eyed, looking a little glazed.

“Um. I...I’ve never…” 

Zach looks like he wants to laugh again. 

“I’ve done _things_ , though,” Chris says hurriedly. Not that many things, and it’s been awhile, but he doesn’t need to spell it out, does he? 

“We don’t have to,” Zach says. “It’s just...no, forget I said anything; we can just--”

“What if I want to?” 

Chris, shut up. Chris, what are you talking about. He doesn’t know. He has no clue, except for the fact that Zach’s stupid fucking face is really handsome and Chris wants to see what it looks like when his dick is buried in Chris’s apparently perfect ass. 

Zach’s mouth falls open. “Seriously?” 

“Yes, seriously. I’m not some blushing virgin, okay?” 

“Except for the part where you are. Um. Okay. So this--damn, this is really fucking hot, you know that? And also, like, an honor. Thank you.” Zach claps a hand over his heart, and it’s actually pretty touching there for a second. 

“How do you want to do this?” 

“Lie back,” Zach says, but before Chris can Zach reaches out and snakes an arm around Chris’s shoulder, pulling him in close to kiss.

When they part, Chris settles back against the pillows and shoots Zach a shit-eating grin despite his nerves. Zach shakes his head. “I probably shouldn’t be doing this,” he says. “I have a feeling I’m creating a monster.”

“Or maybe you’re just ruining me for anyone else,” Chris says.

This garners an odd look, as if Zach’s eyes go just a shade darker. Something about the air between them makes Chris want to shudder.

“Lie back,” Zach repeats, his voice rough. He resumes his post nearer the foot of the bed, next to Chris’s hip. “You were opening up so well for me a second ago,” he says, voice shifting into dangerous bedroom panther mode. Which is cool, because that’s really working for Chris. “I bet it won’t take much at all to get you ready for me.” 

He hops up with way too much pep for the gravity of the moment, Chris thinks. The Anal Deflowering of Christopher Whitelaw Pine should probably be accompanied by, like, gongs and ritual chanting. Zach’s gone into the bathroom; Chris can see him rifling through a dopp kit, and when he returns he tosses a plastic bottle and a condom packet on the bed next to Chris. 

“Implements,” he says. 

“Obviously.” 

“Okay,” Zach says. “I’m going for it. Just...you can touch yourself, it might...you might like it better. Just don’t get too carried away, okay? I don’t want you to come yet.”

Zach is totally bossy. Chris likes it, he realizes.

“It’s cool. Earlier, remember? I think it took the edge off.”

“Oh yeah,” Zach says, like he’s only half listening. He’s probably not; he’s staring at Chris like a mountaineer planning his route. He runs a hand over Chris’s hip, following the crest of the bone down into the hollow next to his dick and down under his balls. He picks up the bottle and squirts it into his hand.

“Might be a little cold,” he says apologetically, then slides his fingers between Chris’s cheeks again. Chris wriggles a little; it is cold. 

“Sorry,” Zach says absently. He runs his fingers lightly over Chris’s hole and presses one inside. Chris has done this before, by himself, but yeah, it’s been awhile. Zach must have gotten him warmed up before, though, because it’s not that bad. Zach slides his finger in and out again, then slides a second up next to it. 

“Hey!” 

“Please. I was tonguefucking you a second ago; I think you can take it.” 

Chris feels the blush seep all the way down his chest; when he looks up again Zach’s watching it too, his eyes flicking from Chris’s body to his face, and he doesn’t take his eyes off of Chris as he slides both fingers in again. 

“It feels weird,” Chris says. 

Zach smirks at him. “Actually…I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.” Which is all the warning Chris gets before Zach up and swallows his fucking dick.

 _“Jesus Christ!”_

Zach makes a strangled sound that’s probably a laugh. Mission accomplished, though; Chris is definitely not thinking about Zach’s fingers in his ass any more. Well, not only, anyway. 

Zach’s fingers and tongue get to work in point and counterpoint, and for every weird squirmy sensation his fingers trigger there’s a matching swirl of tongue, toe-curling pleasure to make it all better. It’s Pavlovian, almost, because the more they do it, the longer the feedback loop goes on, the more Chris starts to feel like the ass play portion of the proceedings is an added benefit rather than something he’s just dealing with. Zach pulls off and slides his fingers out and Chris actually whimpers in protest. He should probably be embarrassed about it, but he’s way past caring. 

“Listen to you,” Zach says, his voice unexpectedly warm, like Chris is just full of surprises. It hits Chris how late it is, how sleepy he is all of a sudden. He feels like he could just lie here and drift, let Zach inside and melt into the comforter together. 

“I think...I kinda think…” Chris reaches out and grabs Zach’s wrist, looking at the way his index and middle fingers gleam obscenely in the low light. He tugs, and Zach braces his hands on either side of Chris’s head and moves over him on the bed. 

“Yeah? You sure?” He drops down onto his elbows and kisses Chris lightly on the corner of the mouth, and there’s a sweetness in the gesture that makes Chris’s heart flutter embarrassingly. 

He nods. “Yeah,” he says. 

“Cool. I’ll--just tell me what feels good, okay? I want to make it good for you.” 

Chris is a little dubious about how that’s going to work, but he’s going to attempt optimism. Zach kneels between Chris’s legs and rips the condom wrapper open with his teeth, and that more than anything is what drives the point home for Chris. Zach unrolls the condom carefully, and slicks himself with lube. It’s probably a little late in the game for Chris to be eyeballing Zach’s dick and doing mental geometry comparing it to the width of his fingers, but he’s doing it anyway. And then Zach lines himself up and starts to push inside, and Chris can’t really think anymore. 

Zach falls forward onto his hands, his godawful hair flopping over his face, and it’s the sexiest thing Chris has ever seen, despite the fact that Zach’s dick is in his ass and it burns about as much as you’d expect.

“Oh my god, Chris, you… _ah._ Fuck, that’s good.” 

Zach slides in inch by inch, stopping periodically to add more lube, looking methodical. Finally he bottoms out and stills, and the only sound in the room is their breathing, Zach all deep and yogic and Chris gasping like a fucking trout.  
“You okay?” Zach asks. 

“Just give me a sec.” 

“How’s it feel?” 

Chris wants to hide his face; Zach’s right there and inside him and everywhere, too close. He turns his head from side to side on the pillow, screwing his eyes shut. “Full,” he says. 

Zach laughs, and Chris can _feel_ it, really feel it down in his guts, and it’s so, so weird. 

“Yeah,” Zach says, mouth at Chris’s ear. “You’re full all right.” 

“Fucking move,” Chris grits out, because he figures that way it’ll either get better or Zach will come and then it’ll be over at least. 

“Chill, Pine,” Zach says, but he does start to move, achingly slowly. Chris wants to be grouchy about it, for reasons he doesn’t really understand. They’ve always been competitive, maybe it’s just that Zach being the resident expert on something (theater, ass fucking) bothers him on an atomic level. 

Zach has the right idea, though, which Chris eventually has to admit. The slow pace lets the burn subside, and Chris’s mind starts to wander back to Zach’s mouth on him, the twist of his fingers along with it, and before Chris knows quite what he’s doing he’s moving too. When Zach slides out and then back in Chris’s hips cant forward to meet him as if of their own volition. Chris comes back to himself what feels like minutes later to find that they’ve fallen into a rhythm. They’re here and this is happening, Zach is fucking him and it feels--

“Oh my god,” he says. “That...that feels good.” 

“Yeah, yeah, it does.” 

Chris leans up, craning his neck, and Zach must get the picture because he drops his head to meet Chris’s mouth. The kiss is light at first, chaste in comparison to the way their bodies are joined elsewhere. Zach shifts, thrusting into Chris at a certain angle and making him gasp. When Chris does, Zach takes advantage, shoving his tongue into Chris’s mouth and sucking at his lower lip on the retreat. He kisses his way down Chris’s neck, biting at the place where it meets his shoulder. The burst of pain does something to Chris, makes him lift his hips and twist. Zach slides his hands underneath Chris’s ass and squeezes, fucking him faster as he does so like he can’t resist. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Zach says, slowing again. 

“No, it’s good, it’s--do it like that,” Chris says. 

“Don’t think I’m going to last if I do.” 

“That’s....” Chris can’t find the words, his neurons preoccupied with a whole fuckload of sensory processing. “That’s okay,” he manages at last, and Zach gives a kind of breathy moan in response, sliding his hands out from under Chris with a mournful final squeeze. He shifts his weight onto his hands and moves his hips in a tight circle, doing this tantalizing snapping thing when he thrusts back in. 

“Fuck, yes,” Chris says. “Keep doing that.” 

Zach nods, eyes closed. Chris shuts his eyes too and slides his hand between their bodies, wrapping a hand around his dick and jerking it, trying to match Zach. Zach shifts to give Chris room. Chris almost likes the tightness of it, the way he can’t really get as much purchase as he wants, the way each stroke is cut just short and he has to rely on Zach to round out the warm storm of pleasure that’s building in his belly. Above him, Zach’s breathing a little more raggedly now, no more of that damn yoga breathing. Chris notes this with satisfaction. He thinks about the club, about the close humid air and the bodies all around him, slick skin and Zach’s breath hot at his ear. Telling him things. 

“Talk to me,” Chris gasps. 

Zach blinks, and it’s like Chris is calling him back from the edge of the world. “Huh?” 

“Talk to me, come on.” 

“Fuck, baby,” Zach says, taking a deep breath like he’s warming up for it. “Look at you, you’re so fucking hard for my dick in your ass, aren’t you?” He smacks Chris on the cheek, so gently it could be a caress. “Answer me.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I am.” 

“You’re what?” 

“I’m...I’m fucking hard for you, yeah.” 

Zach reaches down and closes his hand over Chris’s on his dick. “Mmm, yeah, you are. I like it. You should have seen you earlier, all scared and blushing...but I knew, I fucking knew---fuck, _Chris_ \--” 

Zach clutches at his shoulder, biting his lip as he comes.

Chris fists himself once, twice, three more times, and then he’s right there too, head thrown back and eyes rolling and the whole nine yards. He spurts all over his stomach, Zach laughing disjointedly and watching it happen as he shivers through his own aftershocks. 

“God, you’re twitching on me.” 

“Mmmmph.” 

Chris flings a hand back over the pillows, still coming, coming for what feels like forever despite the fact that it’s his second round. Zach collapses on top of him, sweaty mess, and when Chris opens his eyes again Zach’s face is right there and he’s smiling all big like a crazy person. 

“What?” Chris says. 

“Such a romantic you are, Christopher.” Zach takes Chris’s face in his hands and kisses him, then pulls back, looking down the bed and guiding himself gently out of Chris. He rolls off to one side, easing the condom off carefully and dropping it off the side of the bed. 

“Gross.” 

Zach waves his hand dismissively. “I’m sure this carpet has seen worse.” He takes Chris’s hand, holds it up above them. The black stamps from the club have started to bleed out into the thin skin at their wrists, edges fuzzy like Chris’s vision, and it’s so late that he just slumps bonelessly onto the bed, lets his head rest against Zach’s. Zach tugs the comforter over them both. 

“You called me baby,” Chris says. 

“You’re dreaming.” 

“No way,” Chris says, looking at their hands, at the spreading ink. “I’ve got proof.”


End file.
